I always liked the paper clips on the Classic Deadlands character sheet. Normally I stick my sheets in a plastic sleeve and mark with a dry erase pen. Enough space for martial arts manoeuvres and weaponry. Space for a mount (horse, clockwork velocoped, or thunderbird, etc). I have found that the 4-page sheets for the World of Darkness useful, because it had space for almost everything including gear owned and not carried, also the second sheet didn't even need to leave the folder.

Normally, I'd say Portrait...but I have nothing agianst Landscape, and just for the sake of being different, I would not mind seeing that format one bit. ("Preference" is a funny word, since something like 99% of the character sheets out there seem to be in Portrait!)

2) When tracking values that change during play, do you prefer a) making notes on the page (either in a large scratch space, or just erase-and-replace or b) a method of tracking visually (like a paperclip marker with numbers placed along the outer edge of the page)?

Actually, I usually take notes on a completely separate piece of scratch paper. I've seen a couple character sheets wtih the paperclip method (Sorcerer, Albedo 1st and 2nd editions) but it's never really appealed to me. Tokens or flat marbles are handier in my experience, but it also depends on how many of them will be getting

3) Is there anything which seldom appears on character sheets that you'd like to see?

This is a toughie. While it's nice to see a place for the extended history and background, especially if there's a working relationship map or something at the center of play (Weapons of the Gods? Legends of the Wulin?), I'm not sure that putting it on the character sheet proper is a good use of space. I'd almost rather see an additional page than crowd up the usual game info.

4) Is there a standard feature of character sheets that you feel isn't needed?

Nope, although multi-page all-in-one sheets are a pain in the neck. (I'm lookin' at you, Anima!) Also, and I know I'm in the minority here, my tastes to sheets run to the utilitarian. While the really pretty and fancy full color sheets are often nice to see, they aren't necessarily as useful as plain text.

Please consider the the request for a digital and editable PDF seconded.

Rather than a pdf form for the character sheet I would prefer an Excel spreadsheet that could be downloaded from the web site, much like Hero Games. This would allow a game master to make any "necessary" changes to the document and would allow the players, and GM, to have a clean copy available, even if they lost/misplaced it. I think it is much easier for most people to gain access to a spreadsheet program then a full version of Acrobat or other pdf editing program.

When I used the advanced combat rules in World of Darkness, I had the description of the ability and the game mechanics of the ability written on index cards. Found that to be the easy way to keep combat fluid. Other players can see what you're doing while you do it without having to take your character sheet from you.

I've always favoured landscape just for the tabletop real estate. However both designs are nice. I wouldn't use a coloured or toned background on any stat they gets frequently changed. It just looks messy after an eraser has burnt a white mark in it from frequent changes.